😊 Manners Cost A Lot

📚 Knowledge builders

• Craig Barton Pt2 → Craig Barton interviews James Radburn on the evolving role of AI in education, stressing the need for AI literacy, human oversight, and critical engagement with research. They explore how technology can enhance pedagogy while warning against over reliance. The conversation also highlights the importance of addressing digital inequality and fostering a love of learning.

• Teacher Prompt Survey → To make sure you get exactly the kind of AI insights you need, I’d be grateful if you could take just 90 seconds to answer 6 quick questions (5 multiple choice, 1 optional free text).

  This is your chance to help shape the future direction of Teacher Prompts — and make sure you don't miss out on content that could save you time, improve your teaching, or spark new ideas.

  Click here to take the quick survey

  Thank you so much for being part of this growing community — your voice genuinely matters.

🤖 Industry updates

• o3 and o4-mini Released → OpenAI has announced two major updates: o3 and o4-mini — part of its next generation of AI models.

  1. Substantial Improvement in Reasoning and Problem-Solving

     • o3 is noticeably better at complex tasks compared to previous models (like GPT-4).

     • It handles multi-step reasoning, nuanced judgement, and sophisticated tasks more reliably.

     • This suggests a real narrowing of the "hallucination" (confabulation) problem — a longstanding AI limitation.

  2. Higher Speed and Lower Latency

     • Both o3 and o4-mini are faster in generating outputs.

     • This makes AI feel more like a "real-time assistant" rather than a delayed response tool.

     • Particularly important for education, where responsiveness is crucial for planning and dynamic use.

  3. Reduced Costs and Increased Efficiency

     • o4-mini, in particular, is a lighter, cheaper model optimised for many tasks at significantly lower computational cost.

     • This opens the door to much more affordable AI-powered tools — important for schools and educators operating under budget constraints.

  4. Laying the Groundwork for Persistent Memory

     • Although not fully live yet, OpenAI is preparing these models to have "memory" features.

     • AI will be able to retain information about users across sessions (e.g., your preferred lesson styles, specific needs).

     • This sets the stage for deep personalisation — a significant shift from generic outputs to tailored support.

  5. Stronger Foundation for Multimodal Abilities

     • While the o3 release focuses on text, the underlying architecture hints at smoother integration with other modes (images, possibly audio and video).

     • This will later enable richer educational tools — think AI that can read diagrams, mark essays with handwriting, or interpret charts and visuals.

  6. More Robust, Safer Outputs

     • Safety and alignment improvements mean the new models are less likely to produce inappropriate, biased, or otherwise problematic content.

     • Important for educational environments where safeguarding and reliability are non-negotiable.

• Manners Cost Tens of Millions → Applying Pascal’s wager, it would make sense to remember your manners in the hope that the AI machines will scan your face and remember your politeness should they ever rise up. In the meantime, it has been confirmed that replying with your Ps and Qs after a prompt uses tens of millions of dollars in computing and electricity power.

✨ Fresh prompts

1. Core Text Summaries → Ryon Leyshon came up with this excellent idea to create an overview of core text from a reading curriculum. Having all of this in one place is an excellent way in to debate what text a school places in front of pupils. You could even ask GenAI to map out various concepts within texts or matching it with the seven basic plots to see if you are introducing pupils to a wide range of different plots.

   

   A snapshot of the document Ryon created

   Here was his prompt:

Create a summary of the book _____. You are an expert in book review analysis using all sources available on the internet and you are an expert in the primary school curriculum. Be sure to include a succinct general synopsis of the whole book and also a breakdown of every single one of the included individual stories under the headings: 
-title
-synopsis (at least 2 or 3 sentences long)
-genre
-key themes
-primary school subject links (with rationale)
-primary school common topic links
-word count
-approximate age suitability

Format the answers into a table and convert into a word document in landscape with narrow margins.